By Joy Kraft / Enquirer staff writer

Dum. Da-dum-dum. Dum-dum-dum.

Nekyla Hawkins, 6, smiles during a drum instruction class as fellow campers play along at Bi-Okoto Drum & Dance Theatre Images of Africa camp in Walnut Hills. (Craig Ruttle/The Enquirer)

Monday morning inches into 9 a.m., and 10 campers have already shed shoes and socks in a tangled corner pile and sit - surprisingly silently - on folding chairs, bare toes and skinny ankles wrapped tightly around the wide, long barrels of carved and beaded Djembe drums.

Kwame Pongo, from Ghana, slaps the taut calfskin center with the heel of his left palm, stops and looks at the row of six girls and four boys ages 5 1/2-13.

Dum.

"Ladies and gentlemen, good morning," he says.

Without looking down, he slowly taps the drum-top edge with his right rigid fingers - then left - then right again.

Da-dum-dum.

No caffeine required at the Bi-Okoto Drum & Dance Theatre and School of African Culture summer camp.

"One-two-three. Left-right-left. It's like walking yes?" he says, tapping a three-beat sequence, with each student repeating in turn.

Little ones look perplexed about "left" and "right" and the proper palm techniques.

But after 15 minutes and some hand-on-hand tutoring, Pongo has the "gentlemen" pounding out one sequence and the "ladies" another, in unison ... more or less.

The rhythm is Kakelambe and Pongo tells the story of the dance performed once every seven years continually for seven days and seven nights in Mali, Senegal, Guinea and West Africa communities to seek blessings from the Harvest Spirit.

"In Africa we don't have Kroger," he says. "Each household has to grow their own food. If we refuse to work together, as a community, what happens?" he says. "We have no food. How many of you can go without food?"

Several raise their hands giggling, and the introduction to African culture is fully under way with Pongo's beat rumbling through the art warehouse in Walnut Hills. It's the home of the Bi-Okoto Drum & Dance Theatre and School of African Culture. It started in 1994 as a performance group but has evolved into an arts education company.

By Friday, the group will learn the Kakelambe dance, how to tie-dye shirts, paint masks, decorate gourds, dabble in West African "board" games and sing the songs of a community a wide ocean away, all with a heavy dose of respect and self-esteem thrown in.

The summer camp, started in 2003, grew from "parents asking for something to supplement what the kids learn during the year," says company manager Jeaunita Olowe.

"Our parents are truly amazed. We do a lot with respect and how to treat each other ...

"We want them to walk away with a true, better understanding of African cultures."

That has included field trips, a busload of visitors from camps as far away as Montgomery County, Ky., and taste-testing African dish-es like okra stew, jasmine rice and fish "so they have more than what they get from textbooks and see what kids their own age are doing in Africa," says Olowe.

"It's about dispelling the myths, like seeing elephants in the streets, exposing them to new things."

Information: Bi-Okoto School of African Cultures, 2511 Essex Place, 221-6112, www.bi-okoto.com.

E-mail jkraft@enquirer.com